Unique Together
by detectivejigsaw
Summary: Mabel asks Ford a question that he's been dreading for a while...and then comes up with her own creative solution when she hears the answer. Then the next chapter has a similar scenario with Stan and Dipper. Written with permission from Nicnac, since it's based on his/her fic "Half-Twins."
1. Fingers

**This is based on an AU by Nicnac called "Half-Twins," in which Mabel and Dipper are the respective children of Ford and Stan, but still born on the same day. You don't necessarily need to read that to understand this, but I do recommend it. If nothing else, because it's extremely adorable.**

* * *

"Daddy, why don't I have extra fingers?"

Ford slowly lifted his head from the picture he was sketching in his journal to see his little five-year-old daughter peering over the edge of the table at his hands.

His stomach gave an inadvertent twist; the question was innocent enough, and Mabel had never treated his hands with anything less than interest and even downright enjoyment, but sensitivity about them was a very difficult habit to break.

He realized that she was still waiting for an answer, and said, "Because polydactyly is a very unique condition." Then, seeing the confusion in her eyes, he translated, "It's not common to have extra fingers-"

"Or toes!" Mabel piped up, bouncing slightly.

Ford smiled a little. "Yes, or toes. I'm a little surprised that you don't, actually. It's supposed to be a dominant gene that can be passed on to children, but I guess it just didn't happen this time."

To his surprise, Mabel frowned, and her lower lip actually started trembling a tiny bit.

"...Mabel, what is it?" At once Ford laid aside his pen and reached over, picking up his daughter and setting her in his lap.

"...If I don't got extra fingers or toes like you, does that mean something's wrong with me?"

Ford's jaw _dropped_.

"A-Absolutely not!" he finally spluttered. "Sweetheart, there is _nothing_ wrong with you, do you hear me? In fact, many people would-" and had, and did- "say that my extra appendages mean _I'm_ the one who has the defect here."

Mabel scowled stubbornly. "Nuh-uh, they just mean you're special. I wanna be special too."

Of course, what else could Ford do but hug her and spend several minutes reassuring her that she was extremely special, and then take a break from work to play with her until she put these unhappy thoughts out of her mind?

* * *

He didn't exactly forget about their conversation, but during the rest of that week he kind of got lost in some very interesting research on gnome culture, and then he found a new type of cat whose tail always pointed north, and he was therefore sidetracked.

Besides, Mabel didn't bring it up again; she instead absorbed herself in her crafts, and seemed to have returned to her usual levels of contentment.

One afternoon, though, Ford came upstairs from his lab, having finally remembered that he was a mere mortal just like the rest of the world and needed to eat on occasion, and found his daughter standing on her chair at the sink, holding her hand under the running faucet and biting her lip to muffle the fact that she was crying. She tried to hide it away as soon as she realized he was there, but not soon enough to stop him from seeing a bright red burn next to her left pinky finger.

"Mabel!" Ford gasped, rushing towards her and catching her wrist so he could get a closer look, "What happened?!"

"N-nothin'," Mabel sniffled, "just an accident with my crafts."

It was easy enough to figure out further details as he put her hand back under the cold water and probed further: she had been using the hot glue gun, and gotten it on her hand.

For almost a full minute he had to physically suppress the urge to yell at her and ground her from her craft projects for at least a week; it wouldn't help, and hopefully the injury she'd received was punishment enough for her to have learned her lesson.

"Mabel," he finally said, opening his eyes again, "I've told you at least three times now not to put the hot glue gun against your skin, _or_ to use it without me around to supervise. Do you see now why I've told you that?"

She wiped her eyes on her sleeve. "Yeah. But it's for somethin' 'mportant."

He had to breathe hard through his nose again. "Well, it looks like you'll have to figure out another way to do it then, won't you?"

Mabel nodded and buried her other hand in his shirt. "Yeah."

* * *

After lunch Ford moved Mabel's craft supplies downstairs to the lab so that it would be easier to supervise her (at least keeping his ears open). It wasn't the first time he'd had to do this, and after the little incident from earlier he began to consider making this a permanent thing. She wouldn't let him see whatever her project was, insisting that it was a surprise, so he just set her up in a corner and went back to work.

Hours later, a tiny hand tapped his shoulder.

Ford jumped, and it took him a moment to get his head out of his notes. Mabel was standing there, hands behind her back, beaming up at him.

"I finished my project. Wanna see?"

Despite his previous anger-born-of-worry, Ford smiled in amusement and turned the chair around so he was facing her. "Yes, I would love to see it."

Mabel lifted her hands. "Ta-dah!"

It took Ford a moment to understand what he was looking at.

Mabel had taken some of her favorite variegated yarn, knitted it into two long bands, and tied them around her knuckles. At the ends right on the outsides of her pinkies, she had tied on popsicle sticks, which had little strands of pipe cleaner taped to the ends. The whole ensemble had been sprinkled liberally with glitter and sequins.

"They're my new fingers!" Mabel exclaimed proudly, waving her hands in the air. "Now we match!"

Ford stared down at her. Out of the blue, his vision started to get oddly blurry, and he found himself sniffling just like his daughter had earlier.

Mabel's smile faded a little, and she lowered her hands. "...Daddy?" Then, with sudden clarity, "Are you getting glitter in your eyes again?"

"Yes, Mabel," he said in a tone that was a little more husky than usual, "Yes I am." He knelt down on the floor and wrapped both arms around her.

* * *

**Is this an okay ending? I'm not sure if it's that great, I was just kind of stuck for a better one.**

**I have some notes:**

**1\. I've heard that Ford might have extra toes in addition to extra fingers. I dunno if that's true, but why the heck not.**

**2\. I realize that it might not be a good idea for a five-year-old to have a hot glue gun even with adult supervision, but hey, Ford's the kind of guy who does irresponsibly let children have weapons, and since when were the Pineses normal people anyway?**

**3\. I hope you enjoyed this.**


	2. Constellations

**I meant for the first chapter to be just a one-shot, but then I thought of this little story and I just couldn't help myself. But hey, bonus for you, right?**

* * *

The playground seemed like a safe enough place to hang out for the time being. It was the last place the people looking for Stan would expect him to be, and the fact that he'd brought his son would hopefully make grown-ups there less likely to assume he was some kind of creep. Plus, it would give Mason a chance to hang out with other kids and get some fresh air at the same time; the kid didn't get to run around nearly as much as he should've been doing at his age. Not that Stan was really that great a judge of how much exercise someone should be doing, but he had very faint memories of when he was four, and he'd been like a mini-tornado most of the time, running around and destroying everything in his path.

Mason was a lot more subdued than that. Just walking up and down clutching his little toy chameleon against his chest, watching everything, sometimes stopping to look at a cool rock or something. There was a game of what looked like kickball or something going on between a group of kids in one part of the field, but Mason didn't seem too interested in joining. He was way more shy than Stan had ever been at any age-but he was also way smarter, so Stan guessed things balanced each other out more or less.

Stan shifted his position on the park bench until he could stretch his legs out more, making sure to keep half an eye on his son while keeping another half an eye out for...anyone else.

This was probably why he didn't see the group of bigger kids walking across the field for the danger they were until they were already surrounding Mason.

As soon as he saw that, Stan was bristling and leaning forward in his seat.

Part of him wanted to immediately rush to his kid's defense and drive them off-using his brass knuckles if necessary. Another part, though, reminded him that a) he might be jumping to conclusions just a little, there was no evidence yet that they weren't going to be friendly, and b) it might be good for Mason to learn to stand up for himself if they turned out not to be friendly, and besides, c) he'd been teaching him a few boxing moves, and these kids weren't that much bigger than him, so it would be okay, right?

When one of them tried to grab his chameleon, and another reached out a chubby little arm and shoved back Mason's bangs, and the whole group burst into mocking laughter, however, enough was enough.

"HEY!" Stan roared, charging across the field.

As soon as they saw him, the brats screamed and scattered; Mason, however, ran right to his side and wound both tiny arms around his leg, burying his face in it.

No matter how many times this happened, it still amazed Stan that his son trusted him this much. He'd never even known his dad for the first three years of his life, but he had attached himself to him so quickly…

Stan knelt down and began to check him over.

"Did they hurt you?" _I swear, if those little monsters hurt you I'm gonna-_

He shook his head, sniffling. "Nuh-uh." But then he held out his chameleon, allowing Stan to see that one of its little arms had been almost ripped out from being tugged on too hard. It was barely hanging on by a few stitches, and a few grains of sand or whatever that it was stuffed with were spilling out onto the grass.

Stan sighed, and reminded himself that punching children when you were a grown-up was a major taboo no matter what they were like. "Okay, I think it's time to find a hotel."

* * *

Once they found somewhere that was cheap enough for Stan to not need to use his emergency cash (partly achieved by sneaking Mason in through the window after paying for a single), he dug his needle and thread out and began to clumsily sew up the chameleon's wounded leg while sitting on the bed.

Mason held its tail during the 'operation,' rubbing his thumb back and forth like he was trying to reassure it.

"There we go," Stan finally said, biting off the thread and tying it into a clumsy knot so it wouldn't unravel again. "Good as new. Sort of."

Mason pulled his chameleon into a hug and rocked it back and forth, murmuring, "S'okay, you're okay now."

Stan busied himself getting some food out of his duffel: two water bottles, a few bags of nuts, some apples, and a big bag of jerky strips. You know, real high-class stuff.

"Why've I got a birthmark?" Mason asked ten minutes later.

Stan looked up from his food. "I dunno, buddy. Some people have 'em, some don't. It just means you're special."

Mason didn't look overly appeased. "Everyone else thinks it's weird."

Oh boy, if _that_ didn't cause a small rush of deja vu.

"Yeah, well, everyone else is stupid." He wiped his hands on a greasy napkin. "They don't realize it means you're the Big Dipper, and they shouldn't mess with you."

That finally got a small, half-hearted but still real smile out of the kid. Then he came up with another, even more brilliant idea.

"Here, how 'bout this." Stan dug around in his pockets, and by incredible good luck found the marker he'd vaguely remembered having. "Tell you what, how about you give me a birthmark that looks like a constellation too, so that way we'll match."

Mason looked even more delighted; he grabbed for his backpack, and dug out his book of constellations (one of his current favorites).

"Which one do you want?" he asked, taking the marker and flipping through the pages.

Stan thought for a second. Orion might be easiest for the kid, even though he was _really_ good at drawing for his age, but…

"Think you could do Gemini?"

Yeah, yeah, call him a pathetic sap, he didn't care.

Mason's eyes widened a little, and for a second Stan was about to backtrack and tell him Orion was fine, but then he flipped to the correct pages with a resolute frown.

Stan scooted until his back was pressed up against the wall.

"Where you wanna put it?" he asked.

Mason tilted his head thoughtfully, chewing the end of the marker. Then he gave a decisive nod and said, "On your stomach. There's more room there."

"Hey!" Stan lightly cuffed the side of his head-not hard enough to hurt him, of course. For all his faults, he would never, ever do that. But then he pulled off his jacket and hiked up his shirt, allowing Mason to sit astride his leg and begin to painstakingly draw Gemini across his gut.

* * *

"It's hard to draw when you keep giggling, Dad."

"Sorry, I'm just kinda ticklish."

* * *

When he finished, Stan examined his new 'birthmark' proudly.

"Beautiful. Just beautiful."

Mason full-out grinned. He always blossomed whenever his dad praised him that openly, like it was the best compliment he'd ever received.

At bedtime Stan forewent a shower, not wanting to potentially wash the birthmark off, and wondered if he could pick up a permanent marker the next time they had to go shopping. After they'd both brushed their teeth and gotten into semi-clean sleeping clothes, they snuggled together onto the narrow bed.

"Night, Big Dipper," Stan murmured into his son's hair.

Mason giggled quietly. "Night, Dad."

* * *

Eventually the nickname stuck, and was shortened to just Dipper.

* * *

**Of course, the birthmark probably doesn't last, unless Stan manages to get a permanent marker before the next time he has to take a shower.**


End file.
